Cons of Inheritance
by Portia Adams
Summary: Why did Kate run? Who is the mysterious man with a ring? How do Anne Boleyn, a stuffed lion, and dysfunctional family lead to murder?
1. Chapter 1

_It was almost useless to try and keep the tension from showing on her face as she anxiously scanned the streets of Manhattan from the backseat of the slow moving SUV. People were streaming into office buildings from the early morning sunshine. For a moment she tried to remember when she had last done something as reassuringly normal as walking to work._

_Her eyes focused on finding a building she had considered a nuisance for much of the time she had lived in New York, because the crews of the various _Law & Order _shows were forever in front of the building filming. Now the people inside the building were her only chance of salvaging the people she loved from a disaster she had helped create._

_Finally she saw the building. Her hand first reached out to quietly undo the seatbelt next to her, her eyes briefly meeting the blinding blue eyes of the other passenger. She nodded slightly towards the building as her left hand reached into her sleeve to retrieve the sharpest embroidery scissors she owned. Flinging herself forward with great force she jammed the scissors into the neck of the driver as her other hand reached for the unlock button. "RUN!" she screamed, but it was unnecessary. The other passenger was already running into the crowd on the sidewalk. She didn't fight as the bodyguard grabbed her arm and slammed her back into the seat._

_The other passenger had been trained well. Clutching onto her stuffed lion she looked for the first person in a blue uniform she saw._

"_Can you help me?" she asked._

_The man looked down, slightly shocked. "What is it, honey? Are you lost?"_

"_I'm Lysette Walton. Bad men hurt Mommy and me. Mommy said call FBI man Peter Burke, please, to help me."_

Neal Caffery carefully studied the prayer book in his hand as Peter attempted to switch lanes. A very early edition of the Book of Common prayer situated inside, but it was wrapped in the cover of a 14th century work of art.

"I'd say its from the Tudor age," he said, still skimming over the pages. "It's a pretty early version of a Protestant prayer book. What makes it so valuable is that it the cover is made from a piece of Catholic ecclesial art from the 14th century."

Peter frowned. "Why is the cover 150 years older than the book?"

"When Henry the much married closed the Catholic church in England, people used the material parts of the church in various ways. Seeing something like this isn't all that uncommon."

"And you are sure its authentic?"

"As sure as I can be by looking at for four minutes. Why?"

"It was found in the coat pocket of a man shot through the head." Peter's phone buzzed in his pocket. "Peter Burke,' he answered. After a moment his eyes widened. "What precinct? No, don't move her. I don't know, buy her an ice cream or something. I'm coming right now." Calculating his fastest route, a bit of fast maneuvering tossed Neal and the five hundred year old book against the passenger side door.

"That was dramatic."

Peter debated taking Neal into the precinct with him. Even after racking his brain the entire ride across lower Manhattan, he couldn't place a kid who would turn to him for help. He had no clue what he was walking into, and that was not a feeling he liked. This was an instance when Neal might be useful. If nothing else Neal could color with the kid or something while Peter tried to make sense of this puzzle.

"A kid wandered into the 43rd precinct, said someone had been hurting her and her mother, and then asked them to call me."

They walked into the right conference room. Peter was surprised at how small the girl was. He wasn't good with ages, but she didn't look old enough to go to school. Switching into investigator mode, he didn't note any bruises on her and she hardly looked neglected. Her hair was cut into a bob and a barrette held her bangs in place, her sweater, skirt, stockings, and shoes were all in good condition. A strange looking stuffed lion sat in her lap, and the image of the lion was sewn onto the small messenger bag.

Peter realized Neal wasn't behind him any longer. He turned to realized Neal was staring, mouth practically agape, at the girl. Peter turned back as the girl looked up, and he saw the second bluest pair of eyes he'd ever seen.

The first bluest pair belonged to the man next to him.


	2. Chapter 2

The child stared past Peter. "Who made the best chair ever?" she asked, clutching onto her lion.

"Where did you get that lion?" Neal choked out. Peter attempted to figure out what the hell was going on.

"Mommy," she answered, still staring at Neal. Peter pulled his cell phone out and sent a text to every FBI agent he knew asking if anyone knew that Kate Moreau had a daughter. He couldn't quite bring himself to ask them if they had heard Kate had a child by Neal.

"Who made the best chair ever?" the child repeated.

"Eames is to easy an answer," Neal answered, his face whiter than normal.

"Mommy said I might meet the Daddy-man," she said solemnly. "Who are you?" she asked, turning to Peter.

"I'm FBI Special Agent Peter Burke," Peter replied, still a little confused by what exactly was going on.

"I'm Lysette. Kate is my mommy. That's the Daddy-man," as she talked she reached her hand into her little purse and came back with a tiny pair of pink and black scissors. Peter thought that he should take them away from her, whoever the hell she was she must be to young to play with scissors, but she moved faster than he did, quickly cutting into her lion's tail and pulling out a flash drive. "Mommy said give this to you," Lysette said and reached the flash drive out to him, and then started patting her lion.

Lysette sat coloring at the table on the other side of the Plexiglas divide. "She said her birthday is May 30, 2006."

"Kate must've gotten pregnant right before I went in," Neal answered dully.

"She never told you?" Peter asked. Neal shook his head no. "I read in your file that Kate didn't visit for about five months that first year."

"She said she got a job in England, a job she couldn't pass up. She wrote all the time, all of the postmarks were from London."

Peter considered clapping Neal on the shoulder, and then considered again. "So maybe Kate had the baby in London. Anyway, the flash has a movie file. Let's watch."

The video opened on Kate leaning back into a chair. She took a ragged breath.

"My name is Kate Moreau. Almost four years ago I found out I was pregnant, right after my boyfriend Neal Caffery was put into prison. I wanted to tell Neal, but I was afraid. Afraid of what he'd do to protect us. I was also afraid of what other people might do with the knowledge that Neal and I had a child. So I concocted a plan to keep the baby safe. I went to the one place I thought I'd be safe and created a second life. I lied to Neal. I lied to everyone. I thought if I could just keep Lysette a secret and safe until Neal was released from prison…then we three could disappear together and live happily ever after.

"But the one person I most wanted to keep Lysette a secret from found out about her. I don't know how. He said that if I didn't help him he'd hurt my baby. I tried going along with him. If I could just hold out these last months, Neal would be out. But it got worse. I came home one day and Lysette was gone. He brought her back, but he threatened her. Then he threatened Neal.

"That's when I panicked and did something stupid. I went to Neal. I knew what he would do, and I did it anyway. And it was all useless." Kate twisted her hair back and tapped her hand against her throat.

"My uncle had Lysette and me as his prisoners, and me involved in his latest scam. If Agent Burke is watching this, it means that Lysette is safe. I'm working on endless late Tudor tapestries, and I'm seeing French artifacts from the same period. My uncle's latest girl left her laptop unattended, which is how I made this, and I copied every document I can."

Tears were streaming freely down Kate's face. "Please protect my daughter, and please try to keep Neal from getting killed. Lysette needs one of us." the video cut out.

"He'll kill her," Neal said, "he'll kill her for getting Lysette out of his reach. We have to do something. We know she's still in New York, or at least she was a few hours ago."

Peter considered. "It can hardly be a coincidence that Kate is working on Tudor tapestries the same time that an old art thief is killed with some sort of Tudor arts and crafts project in his pocket." Neal was still staring out into space. "Neal, who is Kate's uncle?"

Neal flipped through Kate's file, coming to the picture of Kate with a man's hand on her shoulder in San Diego. He pushed it across the table. "Look at the man's ring. Recognize the pattern?"

Peter considered. It was a rather distinctive pattern. When he saw it is was bigger. "I saw that pattern carved into the face of a man we think was killed by Aleksandr Ivanov."

"Kate's real name isn't Katelyn Moreau. It's Katya Ivanov. He's her uncle." Neal looked up at Peter. "And he'll kill her. Which is why I need to see that lion."

Neal knew he couldn't let himself think deeply about Lysette. Which is why he walked into the conference room where she sat and announced he was taking her lion.

"No."

"I need it, now. It's important."

"No."

Jones walked up to Peter carrying a milkshake. "Seems like the famous Caffery charm is failing him with his own kid," he remarked.

"Neal isn't thinking," Peter mused outloud. "He can't bring himself to try and charm her." Peter decided to bail Neal out, since it looked like the kid was about to bite him.

"Please help me, FBI man." Lysette ran across the room and flung one arm around Peter's leg, the other clutching her lion, a tear streaming down her face. "He wants lion!"

Peter couldn't helped but be touched by the girl's obvious distress. She'd handled being in such a stressful situation so well, but it had to be overwhelming for such a small girl. Peter awkwardly lifted her up. "No one is going to take your lion, honey."

Neal couldn't believe his eyes. The same man who could tell if Neal tried to pull the slightest con was being tricked by a three year old. "She's playing you!" Neal burst out.

Lysette's eyes narrowed and for a moment Neal saw Kate. "Mommy say Daddy man is nice. He's not.' She laid her head on Peter's shoulder. "FBI man is."

"Oh, for god's sake," Neal burst out.

"Maybe you could let him look at it if we all set at the table together?" Peter asked. Lysette thought for a moment, and then nodded.

"Fix his tail, Daddy man?" Lysette asked as she sat down.

Neal nodded as he lifted the lion up. "Kate had a lion like this. Her grandmother made it for her when she was young. It looks like Kate just sewed a new covering over the original lion."

"Mommy said lion needed a new coat," Lysette said.

Neal looked at the stitching. It was all done in purple, like the original lion, but the original lion had been simply stitched. This coat was made up of various stitches in complex patterns.

He remembered, then. The first time they were in France. Kate naked, wrapped in an old blanket, attempting to distract him by telling him that the blanket was telling a story.

Each little picture had a meaning. Kate had made the lion a coat that was a clue to what the hell was going on.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Lord knows, the last thing on TV I want to see is a kid on _White Collar_. Lysette was simply the best reason I could give Kate for betraying Neal. Plus, I liked the idea of Peter being played by a miniature Neal. And forcing Neal to interact with kid almost as charming as he is. We don't know much about Kate, so I wanted to make her an artist, just a different kind of artist. People really do become experts in old tapestry and textile repair…_

Neal sat at the table staring at material he pulled off of the lion, while Lysette sat across from him rocking the lion back and forth. Peter sighed. It was bad enough that he had responsibility for a con man who acted like a child; now he had an actual child in the mix.

A child of Neal Caffery and Kate Moreau. He should go ahead and start preparing the bulletins he'd doubtlessly be issuing in a few years. Hell, he should send out an email now to every agent in the FBI to prepare themselves.

Jones appeared by his side. "Immigration doesn't have any records of Katelyn Moreau leaving the country in the last four years. Same for Katya Ivanov. Of course, I also couldn't find any birth records with Moreau or Ivanov as the mother. Or, you know, records that Katelyn Moreau or Katya Ivanov where ever born."

Peter considered what he knew about Kate. She hadn't been suspected of anything worse than being an accessory in some of Neal's schemes by way of protecting him, so he had never been really interested in her as anything thing other than a piece of the puzzle Neal made up.

"She had to have been somewhere close by," Peter said. "After taking off a for a few months to hide her pregnancy and have Lysette, she never missed another visitation day for Neal. She occasionally put in appearances at the loft. Diana just called to say that Met was still using her on some textile preservation. So, unless Kate built up some major frequent flier miles, she couldn't have been more than a few hours away. We need to find out from Lysette what we can."

"I live in a house where the yard is on the roof," Neal announced without preamble. Sitting in front of him was someone who had lived with Kate everyday while he sat in prison. True, the information he needed was locked in the mind of a pre-schooler, but it was more than he had before.

Lysette looked up, interested. "Wow. Does it has swings?"

"Uh, no." He went back to looking at the lion cloth. A sword. A rose. A rosary. An ax. Her uncle's symbol. A fleur de lis. A bottle of scotch. A needle stuck into a ball of yarn. A large, sturdy candle. A series of crowns, giving the impression that the crown was falling. Kate was telling him a story. He wished to hell he knew what the story meant. "Did you have a backyard?"

"No. 'Cause the water came up in the back."

"The water?"

"Uh huh. I play in the front, 'less Mommy or Auntie Em come with me."

"Did Kate," Neal caught himself, "did Mommy teach you your address?"

"'Course," Lysette answered. "37 Bluebird Pass."

"God almighty," Peter almost laughed. "Kate was hiding in the Hamptons."

Peter managed to acquire a car seat and his motley little crew headed to the Hamptons. Lysette was asleep in the backseat. Glancing over at the Caffery, Peter noticed the tenseness of Neal's jaw.

"You okay? You've had a fairly momentous morning,"

Neal shot him a short look. "She should have told me. I would have done something."

"I'm pretty sure that's why she didn't tell you. She knew exactly what you would do. And she knew I would catch you. She gambled that she could keep it together until you got out. Her gamble just didn't pan out the way she wanted." He waited a moment, and then decided he had to point out the obvious. "Neal, you have a kid."

Silence once more. "When she gets annoyed she looks like Kate. I mean, she kind of looks like a miniature Kate anyway, but when I made her mad she looked at me just like Kate used to when I upset her."

"She has your eyes. And she's definitely a smart, charming kid. Being able to remember everything Kate taught her and jump from the car like that? Even I'm impressed. Oh, and we need to take those scissors away from her. She put them back in her bag after she cut the lion's tail."

"We home?" Lysette asked sleepily from the backseat. "Mommy be at home?"

Looking into the backseat, Neal finally saw it. This tiny human loved Kate as much as he did. This tiny human was part Kate and part him. Kate had spent almost four years doing everything she could to protect Lysette; now it was his turn. And Lysette could him bring back Kate. For both of them.

Damn, he really hoped June liked kids.

"No, Mommy won't be there. We have to figure out where she is. Like a puzzle. Your lion, does he like puzzles?"

"Lion's a girl, silly."

Peter helped out. Neal looked like he was being kicked repeatedly. "What's her name?"

"Arbella," Lysette answered as she smoothed the lion's mane down."

"Arabella, that's a pret-" Peter was interrupted by Neal turning quickly to the back seat.

"Lysette, was Arbella always the lion's name?" Neal asked. Peter decided the stress must have finally gotten to his prisoner/partner.

"Uh-uh. It was just lion. Mommy said Arbella was a good name."

"Arbella," Neal breathed out. He saw it all, now. The bottle that meant broken promises, promises both he and Kate had made and broken. The scarf folded into a M the last time he saw Kate. M for Mary. The Tudor rose. The intricate stitching. Kate's uncle. France. Scotch for Scotland.

"The sturdy candle. It would have a hardy wick," Neal said with a sound that was practically a giggle.

"What?"

"Peter, Ivanov grabbed Kate because he needed her to work on tapestries. Why? Tapestries are hardly a moneymaker on the black market. And if he just wanted her to repair some antiquities he'd stumbled upon, he'd hardly need to kidnap her, or threaten Lysette. He could have just gone through a back channel. If they were anything interesting Kate would have been jumping to work on them.

"She's been leaving clues all along, I just didn't put them together. There are some tapestries and other textiles that would be worth a fortune. When Elizabeth I imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots she sent her to live with some English nobles. The wife was Bess of Hardwick, one of the most famous embroiders of all time. Mary was also a renowned stitcher. The two women spent years working on various tapestries and embroidery projects. They fell out, it was difficult being Mary's jailer. Bess lived apart from her husband and Mary, and then Mary lost her head. The axe. The falling crowns. Anyway, Bess collected and saved all of the things she made during her lifetime. You can still see them in England. Kate even worked on a restoration project. But no one knows what happened to the projects Mary did in her captivity, including the projects she did with Bess."

"So that's why her uncle wants Kate?"

"There's no one better. If I was going to make a bunch of fake Tudor embroideries, I'd want Kate to do them. She's worked with Bess of Hardwick's sewing, she knows how to make it look like Bess did part of the sewing."

Peter could see the outline of what Ivanov may be up to. "The man with the Tudor book. Maybe Ivanov is planning on 'discovering' all sorts of Tudor artifacts."

San Diego. Ivanov would have wanted Kate for her talent with a needle, but there was another reason. If Ivanov had a use for Tudor era antiques, he'd want the best known artifact lost to time. Neal knew why Ivanov had forced Kate to betray him, using Lysette as the bait.

Anne Boleyn's necklace.


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Thanks for the comments. I'm trying to write this whenever I get some time and inspiration. Obviously, my continuity with the show breaks off after the second episode, _Threads.

"This is where you live, Lysette?" Peter asked. He didn't know why he bothered to be surprised. Where else would Neal Caffery's child live but a big Victorian pile directly on the sound that looked like the setting of some movie about modern princesses?

"No, silly. Auntie Em lives here. We lives in the back," Lysette answered. "Want to see Auntie Em."

"You have any clue who Auntie Em might be?" Peter directed the question at Neal.

Neal shook his head slowly. "Kate, for obvious reasons, distanced herself from her family. I never heard of an Auntie Em."

Peter wasn't all that surprised that Kate kept secrets from Neal. Hell, she kept a whole human being a secret. He approached the door after getting Neal to agree that it would be safer for Lysette if they stayed in the car.

A well dressed woman in her late forties, with gleaming long dark hair answered the door. "May I help you?"

Peter flipped out his badge. "Peter Burke, FBI. There is a little girl…"

"Lysette? Is Lysette all right? What about Kate?"

After an emotional reunion, Lysette went off to eat cookies. "My name is Mary Welles. It used to be Mariska Ivanov."

"You are Kate's aunt?" Neal asked. Mary nodded.

"I got away from my family when Katya was still a baby, but I tried to keep in touch, to make sure she was all right. When Kate broke away we saw each other more often. We had to do it quietly, we were both trying to keep under the radar of my brother.

"When Kate realized she was pregnant she was desperate. Try not to be angry at her for deceiving you, Neal. She was petrified. She didn't know what you would do if you found out and she was trying to keep off Aleksandr's map. That's when she came to me. My firm has an office in London. We used that as a cover."

"Lysette wasn't born in London?" Neal asked.

'She was born right here," Mary answered. "It was torture for Kate to be so close to you and not be able to see you. As soon as the baby was born and Kate was able to drive she went to see you."

"She looked exhausted and red eyed. She said it was because she came straight from the plane."

Mary nodded. "It was a hard year. We thought it best if she and the baby lived out here. My housekeeper is trust-worthy and could help her with Lyssie, she was close enough to visit you, and close to enough to put in appearances in her old life."

"So what happened?"

Mary's mouth narrowed. "Aleksandr's lackeys realized something was off, that Kate's life didn't make sense. They must've followed her back here, told Aleks about Lysette. God knows how long he sat on the information before he snatched Lyssie to make Kate do his bidding."

"When he snatched them why didn't you do something?" Neal asked. His voice was cold, Peter thought, colder than he'd ever heard it. "Did you ever think of what could be happening to them?"

"Of course I thought," Mary snapped back. "I've been working every contact I had to get them both back safely. How did you end up with Lysette and not Kate?"

"Apparently Kate caused a distraction to help Lysette escape. She taught Lysette to ask a police officer to contact me," Peter said.

Mary reached into a side drawer and produced keys. "You will need some things for Lysette. I'm sure she can show you the path down to the cottage."

_Kate pressed a hand against her mouth to insure that she wouldn't accidentally make a sound as Aleks pressed the dagger closer to her throat. He needn't have bothered. She'd calculated the odds. Burke would be packing, but she doubted the FBI was letting Neal carry heat, not that he was much good with guns anyway. Mary kept a gun in the console table, but she couldn't see well enough to judge when Mary was near it. It would be Burke against Aleks until Aleks' goons burst in. There was far to great a chance that Lysette would be caught in the crossfire. Or Neal. _

_ It had been four years since she heard Neal's voice out in the open like that, not over the stupid phone at the prison. She swore she could smell the sandlewood scent of him, her hand pressing against the wood of her temporary prison unconsciously. And Lysette. Her heart tugged as she heard Lyssie run into the room and assure Neal and Burke she could lead them to the cottage. Her bright little girl. The plan had worked; Lyssie was safe and with her father._

_ Some crazy part of her wanted to laugh. Although she had indulged in happily ever after daydreams of a couture clad Caffery family living happily ever after, she'd always planned on a breaking in period. She couldn't quite imagine Neal coping with fatherhood. Hopefully that mansion he conned himself into came complete with maid service._

"This it," Lysette announced unnecessarily as they arrived at the small clapboard cottage. A room that ran the width of the cottage served as kitchen, dining, and living room. A glassed in porch held shelves of sewing equipment. Three doors lined the back wall of the room; Lysette's room, bathroom, Kate's room.

It was a wreck. Cushions were off the sofa, sewing supplies were tossed from the shelves, kitchen supplies littered the floor. Someone had tossed the place in a hurry. "Mommy be mad," Lysette sad sadly.

Seeing that Neal was in a Kate induced coma and therefore what be of no use, Peter searched a closet until he found a stash of canvas shopping bags. "Here you go, sweetheart. Why don't you get some more toys? You'll get bored with just lion to play with."

Any clue Kate might've left him was lost in this disaster, Neal thought. He opened her closet and took down two suitcases, then thought again and headed back for the kitchen.

"What are you looking for," Peter asked as Neal ripped through the cabinets until he found a stack of cookbooks, until he found a late 1950s edition of the red and white checkered _Better Homes and Gardens _book.

A yellowed piece of paper fell out, along with a manilla envelope.

" 4-19-58

My darling,

Last night was lovely. A perfect kind of old New York night; I almost expected we'd have to go to a speakeasy for a cocktail! And while your choice of a place for a nightcap was unexpected, what a treat to see Senator Kennedy enjoying a cheeseburger. You would think that the noise of the street outside would be overwhelming, but I could hear everything perfectly. Soon I'll be back in Sycamore, but I'll forever be yours."

"Did the note come with the book?" Peter asked.

"It's a clue," Neil answered, distracted for a moment. "She left us a phone number. 212-794-1958."

He knew he was going to regret asking. "How did you get that, exactly?"

"Old New York. What's the classic New York area code?"

"212," Peter answered.

"Sycamore is an old telephone exchange, 79. And the rest of the number is the date," Neal kept staring at the note. "Peter, the Howard Johnsons on Time Square is closed, isn't it?"

"Howard Johnsons?" Peter asked. "Oh, JFK's favorite cheeseburger. I get that one. Question, Neal, do you and Kate ever communicate by simply saying what you mean?"

Neal gave him a half smile. "Sometimes."

"Well, she has a notarized document in here stating that you are Lysette's father and giving you custody should she be unable to attend to Lysette. Very practical."

Peter helped Lysette back into her car seat as Neal came out carrying two suitcases.

"Lysette has that many clothes?" Peter asked.

"Kate will need things when she gets back," Neal answered. Peter didn't tell his de facto partner that he had a feeling the chances of Kate coming back were growing slimmer.

_"You little fool," Aleksandr spat at Kate as they stood in Mariska's living room. "You have brought the FBI down on us all, for what? Love of a gigolo?"_

_ Kate seethed. "It's your inability to run a simple con that has endangered us all," she spat back. "You aren't half the man my grandfather was."_

_ The snap of flesh against flash happened so quickly no one actually saw it; suddenly Kate simply was flying through the air, only coming to rest when her head struck the side of the coffee table. _

_ All she knew for a moment was color and sound, and then a rush a feeling like a freight train crashed down on her head. The taste of iron filled her mouth. Somewhere, her aunt was screaming. She pushed up on her hands and struggled to her feet, unwilling to let her uncle see her flinch._

_ "Watch yourself, Katya," Aleks said and left the room, "You have much to lose.". Kate allowed her knees to buckle as Mary drug her towards the sofa._

_ That bastard was going down, Kate thought. She'd show him the definition of family._


End file.
